The Library: Three Jeremiads
Robert Darnton
The New York Review of Books
...
Google represents the ultimate in business plans. By controlling access to information, it has made billions, which it is now investing in the control of the information itself. What began as Google Book Search is therefore becoming the largest library and book business in the world. Like all commercial enterprises, Google’s primary responsibility is to make money for its shareholders. Libraries exist to get books to readers—books and other forms of knowledge and entertainment, provided for free. The fundamental incompatibility of purpose between libraries and Google Book Search might be mitigated if Google could offer libraries access to its digitized database of books on reasonable terms. But the terms are embodied in a 368-page document known as the “settlement,” which is meant to resolve another conflict: the suit brought against Google by authors and publishers for alleged infringement of their copyrights.
Despite its enormous complexity, the settlement comes down to an agreement about how to divide a pie—the profits to be produced by Google Book Search: 37 percent will go to Google, 63 percent to the authors and publishers. And the libraries? They are not partners to the agreement, but many of them have provided, free of charge, the books that Google has digitized. They are being asked to buy back access to those books along with those of their sister libraries, in digitized form, for an “institutional subscription” price, which could escalate as disastrously as the price of journals. The subscription price will be set by a Book Rights Registry, which will represent the authors and publishers who have an interest in price increases. Libraries therefore fear what they call “cocaine pricing”—a strategy of beginning at a low rate and then, when customers are hooked, ratcheting up the price as high as it will go.
To become effective, the settlement must be approved by the district court in the Southern Federal District of New York. The Department of Justice has filed two memoranda with the court that raise the possibility, indeed the likelihood, that the settlement could give Google such an advantage over potential competitors as to violate antitrust laws. But the most important issue looming over the legal debate is one of public policy. Do we want to settle copyright questions by private litigation? And do we want to commercialize access to knowledge?
I hope that the answer to those questions will lead to my happy ending: a National Digital Library—or a Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), as some prefer to call it. Google demonstrated the possibility of transforming the intellectual riches of our libraries, books lying inert and underused on shelves, into an electronic database that could be tapped by anyone anywhere at any time. Why not adapt its formula for success to the public good—a digital library composed of virtually all the books in our greatest research libraries available free of charge to the entire citizenry, in fact, to everyone in the world?
To dismiss this goal as naive or utopian would be to ignore digital projects that have proven their worth and feasibility throughout the last twenty years. All major research libraries have digitized parts of their collections. Since 1995 the Digital Library Federation has worked to combine their catalogues or “metadata” into a general network. More ambitious enterprises such as the Internet Archive, Knowledge Commons, and Public.Resource .Org have attempted digitization on a larger scale. They may be dwarfed by Google, but several countries are now determined to out-Google Google by scanning the entire contents of their national libraries.
In December 2009 President Nicolas Sarkozy of France announced that he would make €750 million available for digitizing the French cultural “patrimony.” The National Library of the Netherlands aims to digitize within ten years every Dutch book, newspaper, and periodical produced from 1470 to the present. National libraries in Japan, Australia, Norway, and Finland are digitizing virtually all of their holdings; and Europeana, an effort to coordinate digital collections on an international scale, will have made over ten million objects—from libraries, archives, museums, and audiovisual holdings—freely accessible online by the end of 2010.
If these countries can create national digital libraries, why can’t the United States? Because of the cost, some would argue. Far more works exist in English than in Dutch or Japanese, and the Library of Congress alone contains 30 million volumes. Estimates of the cost of digitizing one page vary enormously, from ten cents (the figure cited by Brewster Kahle, who has digitized over a million books for the Internet Archive) to ten dollars, depending on the technology and the required quality. But it should be possible to digitize everything in the Library of Congress for less than Sarkozy’s €750 million—and the cost could be spread out over a decade.
The greatest obstacle is legal, not financial. Presumably, the DPLA would exclude books currently being marketed, but it would include millions of books that are out of print yet covered by copyright, especially those published between 1923 and 1964, a period when copyright coverage is most obscure, owing to the proliferation of “orphans”—books whose copyright holders have not been located. Congress would have to pass legislation to protect the DPLA from litigation concerning copyrighted, out-of-print books. The rights holders of those books would have to be compensated, yet many of them, especially among academic authors, might be willing to forgo compensation in order to give their books new life and greater diffusion in digitized form. Several authors protested against the commercial character of Google Book Search and expressed their readiness to make their work available free of charge in memoranda filed with the New York District Court.
Perhaps even Google itself could be enlisted in the cause. It has digitized about two million books in the public domain. It could turn them over to the DPLA as the foundation of a collection that would grow to include more recent books—at first those from the problematic period of 1923–1964, then those made available by their rights holders. Google would lose nothing by this generosity; each digitized book that it made available could, if other donors agree, be identified as a contribution from Google; and it might win admiration for its public-spiritedness.
Even if Google refused to cooperate, a coalition of foundations could provide enough to finance the DPLA, and a coalition of research libraries could provide the books. By working systematically through their holdings, a great collection could be formed. It would conform to the highest standards in its bibliographical apparatus, its scanning, its editorial decisions, and its commitment to preservation for the use of future generations.
Should the Google Book Search agreement not be upheld by the court, its unraveling would come at an extraordinary moment in the development of an information society. We have now reached a period of fluidity, uncertainty, and opportunity. Things have come undone, and they can be put together in new ways, subordinating private profit to the public good and providing everyone with access to a commonwealth of culture.
Would a Digital Public Library of America solve all the other problems—the inflation of journal prices, the economics of scholarly publishing, the unbalanced budgets of libraries, and the barriers to the careers of young scholars? No. Instead, it would open the way to a general transformation of the landscape in what we now call the information society. Rather than better business plans (not that they don’t matter), we need a new ecology, one based on the public good instead of private gain. This may not be a satisfactory conclusion. It’s not an answer to the problem of sustainability. It’s an appeal to change the system.
To Read the Entire Essay
Thursday, December 09, 2010
Dave McDougall: History Lessons (Pt. 1) -- Notes on Steven Soderbergh's Che
History Lessons (Pt. 1): Notes on Steven Soderbergh's "Che"
by Dave McDougall
MUBI
CHE: PART ONE (THE ARGENTINE)
What is a political image? How does it work, and what are the elements that make it work? This is a difficult enough question for the still image; but how is it that political moving images work? Relatedly, how can we unarchive the politicality of images as separate from their political sheen—or, put differently, how can we authenticate the politicality of the moving image?
MAPS
Spend a few minutes watching the BBC series Maps: Power, Plunder and Possession or take a quick trip to the British Library this fall, and confirm what you might already know: maps, in their chief purpose, are tools of conquest and control. Maps are weapons that structure military campaigns and show geographic realities, and geography can determine history.
A film that entrenches itself in the logistics of the struggle for control, then, ought to situate itself in a context in which this control can be codified, visualized: mapped.
To Read the Rest and to Access Video Clips
by Dave McDougall
MUBI
CHE: PART ONE (THE ARGENTINE)
What is a political image? How does it work, and what are the elements that make it work? This is a difficult enough question for the still image; but how is it that political moving images work? Relatedly, how can we unarchive the politicality of images as separate from their political sheen—or, put differently, how can we authenticate the politicality of the moving image?
MAPS
Spend a few minutes watching the BBC series Maps: Power, Plunder and Possession or take a quick trip to the British Library this fall, and confirm what you might already know: maps, in their chief purpose, are tools of conquest and control. Maps are weapons that structure military campaigns and show geographic realities, and geography can determine history.
A film that entrenches itself in the logistics of the struggle for control, then, ought to situate itself in a context in which this control can be codified, visualized: mapped.
To Read the Rest and to Access Video Clips
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
Watching Theology: Barton Fink (1991)
Barton Fink (1991)
Watching Theology
Some films are clear - you know exactly what you're getting and exactly what you're supposed to learn. Then there's Barton Fink. In the midst of a bad case of writer's block, the Coen Brothers scripted this tale of a talented playwright with his own unusual case of writer's block. Barton leaves the promise and glory of the New York elite for the heartless, business world of Hollywood. Along the way, he checks into the Hotel Earle, meets Charlie and has probably sold his soul.
On this edition, we take a few glances at this metaphor-rich story about a man's self-delusion and the unfortunate fellow residents of, what may be, Hell.
To Watch the Episode
Watching Theology
Some films are clear - you know exactly what you're getting and exactly what you're supposed to learn. Then there's Barton Fink. In the midst of a bad case of writer's block, the Coen Brothers scripted this tale of a talented playwright with his own unusual case of writer's block. Barton leaves the promise and glory of the New York elite for the heartless, business world of Hollywood. Along the way, he checks into the Hotel Earle, meets Charlie and has probably sold his soul.
On this edition, we take a few glances at this metaphor-rich story about a man's self-delusion and the unfortunate fellow residents of, what may be, Hell.
To Watch the Episode
Jo Comerford: The federal budgeting system and how our taxes are channeled into military spending
Just the Tax, Ma'am
TomCast
National Priorities Project executive director Jo Comerford talks about the federal budgeting system and how our taxes are channeled into military spending.
To Listen to the Interview
TomCast
National Priorities Project executive director Jo Comerford talks about the federal budgeting system and how our taxes are channeled into military spending.
To Listen to the Interview
Monday, December 06, 2010
Dead Confederate Live at the 2008 SXSW
(This broadcast of their show really makes me want to see them live!)
SXSW 2008: Dead Confederate
National Public Radio
Both in name and in sound, Dead Confederate aims to further the cause of Southern rock. The Georgia band does indeed mix its Neil Young with its Lynyrd Skynyrd, but underneath all those heavy chords is a group of guys raised on Nirvana, Sonic Youth, and other titans of early-'90s alt-rock.
To Listen to the Concert
SXSW 2008: Dead Confederate
National Public Radio
Both in name and in sound, Dead Confederate aims to further the cause of Southern rock. The Georgia band does indeed mix its Neil Young with its Lynyrd Skynyrd, but underneath all those heavy chords is a group of guys raised on Nirvana, Sonic Youth, and other titans of early-'90s alt-rock.
To Listen to the Concert
Sam Mithani: The Hollywood Left -- Cinematic Art and Activism in the 1930s
THE HOLLYWOOD LEFT: CINEMATIC ART AND ACTIVISM IN THE 1930s
by Sam Mithani
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(CINEMA-TELEVISION—CRITICAL STUDIES)
December 2007
ABSTRACT
The dissertation re-examines the Thirties in its artistic, cultural and political
specificity to place leftist cultural productions in their complex contexts, particularly the ideological. It concentrates on radical/proletarian fiction and Hollywood leftist cinema as expressions of prevalent “crisis” conditions, such the Great Depression and the New Deal, anti-Semitism, anticommunism, labor unionism, racism in the South, and the rise of fascism/Nazism. It demonstrates how the leftist favored genres in literature (proletarian fiction) and cinema (the social-problem film) underwent transformations in response to the changing national and global conditions, leftist political positions and debates on the inter-relations between art, ideology and culture. Working in the tradition of American social criticism, the Hollywood Left responded productively to the challenges by creating a vibrant cinematic counterdiscourse. Leftists strived to create a “popular Marxism” and a “leftist populism” by interpellating their critique within popular Hollywood genres, albeit subject to the commercial mandate of the studio system and its heavy-handed censorship apparatus. This contentious and creative engagement produced some of the most memorable “critical” works of Hollywood’s “Golden Age,” such as I am a Fugitive
from a Chain Gang, Fury and Dust Be My Destiny. The dissertation critically examines these films, compares them to the mainstream “populist cinema” of Frank Capra, and argues that the Hollywood Left creatively reworked this populism to fashion a far more critical, even abrasive, cinema, giving rise to the foundational works of American film noir. The dissertation also frames leftist cinema as a committed response to the remarkable changes in race, class, gender and ideology taking places within American culture. In particular, the totalitarian ideologies of fascism and Nazism presented grave challenges to democracy. The Hollywood Left led the filmic battle against these forces and produced energetic cinematic propaganda in films like Blockade (1938), Juarez (1939) and Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939), which are the focus of this work. In essence the dissertation calls for a re-evaluation of the “Red Decade” as one of great cultural and artistic renaissance for American culture and the Left rather than one of disappointment, disillusion and disenchantment as has been popularized by conservative critics.
Chapter One: Dissertation premise, method and organization
Chapter Two: The “Red Decade” and its Influence on American
Cinema, Literature and Culture
Chapter Three: A “Marxist” Cinema in Hollywood? Leftist cultural
productions in their Social, Political and Cultural Contexts
Chapter Four: Antifascism, the Hollywood Left and the transformation
of the social-problem film
Chapter Five: Leftist anti-Nazism, Warner Bros. studios and the further
transformation of the social-problem film
Chapter Six: Further research on Leftist studies of the Thirties
To Read the Dissertation
by Sam Mithani
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(CINEMA-TELEVISION—CRITICAL STUDIES)
December 2007
ABSTRACT
The dissertation re-examines the Thirties in its artistic, cultural and political
specificity to place leftist cultural productions in their complex contexts, particularly the ideological. It concentrates on radical/proletarian fiction and Hollywood leftist cinema as expressions of prevalent “crisis” conditions, such the Great Depression and the New Deal, anti-Semitism, anticommunism, labor unionism, racism in the South, and the rise of fascism/Nazism. It demonstrates how the leftist favored genres in literature (proletarian fiction) and cinema (the social-problem film) underwent transformations in response to the changing national and global conditions, leftist political positions and debates on the inter-relations between art, ideology and culture. Working in the tradition of American social criticism, the Hollywood Left responded productively to the challenges by creating a vibrant cinematic counterdiscourse. Leftists strived to create a “popular Marxism” and a “leftist populism” by interpellating their critique within popular Hollywood genres, albeit subject to the commercial mandate of the studio system and its heavy-handed censorship apparatus. This contentious and creative engagement produced some of the most memorable “critical” works of Hollywood’s “Golden Age,” such as I am a Fugitive
from a Chain Gang, Fury and Dust Be My Destiny. The dissertation critically examines these films, compares them to the mainstream “populist cinema” of Frank Capra, and argues that the Hollywood Left creatively reworked this populism to fashion a far more critical, even abrasive, cinema, giving rise to the foundational works of American film noir. The dissertation also frames leftist cinema as a committed response to the remarkable changes in race, class, gender and ideology taking places within American culture. In particular, the totalitarian ideologies of fascism and Nazism presented grave challenges to democracy. The Hollywood Left led the filmic battle against these forces and produced energetic cinematic propaganda in films like Blockade (1938), Juarez (1939) and Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939), which are the focus of this work. In essence the dissertation calls for a re-evaluation of the “Red Decade” as one of great cultural and artistic renaissance for American culture and the Left rather than one of disappointment, disillusion and disenchantment as has been popularized by conservative critics.
Chapter One: Dissertation premise, method and organization
Chapter Two: The “Red Decade” and its Influence on American
Cinema, Literature and Culture
Chapter Three: A “Marxist” Cinema in Hollywood? Leftist cultural
productions in their Social, Political and Cultural Contexts
Chapter Four: Antifascism, the Hollywood Left and the transformation
of the social-problem film
Chapter Five: Leftist anti-Nazism, Warner Bros. studios and the further
transformation of the social-problem film
Chapter Six: Further research on Leftist studies of the Thirties
To Read the Dissertation
Sunday, December 05, 2010
David Solnit: Eleven Years After WTO -- The Impact of Uprisings
Eleven Years After WTO: The Impact of Uprisings
by David Solnit
Truth-Out
Eleven years ago yesterday, on November 30, 1999, a public uprising shut down the World Trade Organization (WTO) and occupied downtown Seattle.
That same week in 1999, three thousand miles away in Immokalee, Florida, farm workers carried out a five-day general strike against abusive growers paying starvation wages. Two weeks ago, on November 16, 2010, those same growers - the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange representing 90 percent of the industry - publicly agreed to every one of the farm workers "Fair Food" demands.
Now seems like an important time to remind ourselves that when we organize, have some strategy and rebel we can build power and win change. The Seattle uprising was just a warm-up for what is needed and to come as we face the crisis of wars, corporate capitalism and climate. We continue to win victories and build movements; from recent, historic farm worker victory in Florida, to the successful US Social Forum in Detroit in the spring to the climate justice mobilization today in Cancun, Mexico.
Seattle
On November 30, tens of thousands of people joined the nonviolent, direct-action blockade that encircled the WTO ministerial conference site, keeping the most powerful institution on earth shut down from dawn until dusk. People did not back down in the face of teargas, rubber bullets and even the National Guard being deployed.
Longshore workers shut down every West Coast port from Alaska to Los Angeles. Large numbers of Seattle taxi drivers went on strike. All week, the firefighters union refused to turn their fire hoses on people. Tens of thousands walked out of or skipped work or school. Coordinated actions took place across the planet.
Thousands continued nonviolent direct action, marches and protest throughout the week, despite a clampdown that included nearly 600 arrests, the declaration of a "state of emergency" and suspension of the basic rights of free speech and assembly in downtown Seattle. Hundreds of independent media journalists founded Indymedia and did an end run around corporate media, getting the real story out. A month later, after corporate media attempts to marginalize the uprising, a January 2000 opinion poll by Business Week found that 52 percent of Americans supported with the activists at the WTO in Seattle.
Mass action in Seattle and afterward was a convergence of movements, networks and communities taking on the system, not a single movement focused on the issue of trade. Those movements, networks and people continue in Immokalee, Detroit, Cancun and everywhere.
...
To Read the Rest of the Essay and the Reports about Immokalee, Detroit and Cancun
by David Solnit
Truth-Out
Eleven years ago yesterday, on November 30, 1999, a public uprising shut down the World Trade Organization (WTO) and occupied downtown Seattle.
That same week in 1999, three thousand miles away in Immokalee, Florida, farm workers carried out a five-day general strike against abusive growers paying starvation wages. Two weeks ago, on November 16, 2010, those same growers - the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange representing 90 percent of the industry - publicly agreed to every one of the farm workers "Fair Food" demands.
Now seems like an important time to remind ourselves that when we organize, have some strategy and rebel we can build power and win change. The Seattle uprising was just a warm-up for what is needed and to come as we face the crisis of wars, corporate capitalism and climate. We continue to win victories and build movements; from recent, historic farm worker victory in Florida, to the successful US Social Forum in Detroit in the spring to the climate justice mobilization today in Cancun, Mexico.
Seattle
On November 30, tens of thousands of people joined the nonviolent, direct-action blockade that encircled the WTO ministerial conference site, keeping the most powerful institution on earth shut down from dawn until dusk. People did not back down in the face of teargas, rubber bullets and even the National Guard being deployed.
Longshore workers shut down every West Coast port from Alaska to Los Angeles. Large numbers of Seattle taxi drivers went on strike. All week, the firefighters union refused to turn their fire hoses on people. Tens of thousands walked out of or skipped work or school. Coordinated actions took place across the planet.
Thousands continued nonviolent direct action, marches and protest throughout the week, despite a clampdown that included nearly 600 arrests, the declaration of a "state of emergency" and suspension of the basic rights of free speech and assembly in downtown Seattle. Hundreds of independent media journalists founded Indymedia and did an end run around corporate media, getting the real story out. A month later, after corporate media attempts to marginalize the uprising, a January 2000 opinion poll by Business Week found that 52 percent of Americans supported with the activists at the WTO in Seattle.
Mass action in Seattle and afterward was a convergence of movements, networks and communities taking on the system, not a single movement focused on the issue of trade. Those movements, networks and people continue in Immokalee, Detroit, Cancun and everywhere.
...
To Read the Rest of the Essay and the Reports about Immokalee, Detroit and Cancun
Saturday, December 04, 2010
Conversations With History: Noam Chomsky
[Expanded discussion on concision and framing, and essential context for thinking about the current Wikileaks whistleblower releases and the American government's/media's repressive attacks]
Transformative Radio: Reproductive Freedom
Reproductive Freedom
Transformative Radio
In late February of 2010, various members of Queers without Borders and the Hartford local of the Workers Solidarity Alliance did a panel discussion on reproductive freedom. Among other things, they touch on the theory of intersectionality, the problem of “rights”, anarchism, and organizing in the trans community.
To Listen to the Panel Discussion
Transformative Radio
In late February of 2010, various members of Queers without Borders and the Hartford local of the Workers Solidarity Alliance did a panel discussion on reproductive freedom. Among other things, they touch on the theory of intersectionality, the problem of “rights”, anarchism, and organizing in the trans community.
To Listen to the Panel Discussion
Tom Engelhardt and Jonathan Schell on America's Nuclear Trajectory
Engelhardt and Schell on America's Nuclear Trajectory
Tom Dispatch Audio and Video
A conversation between Tom Engelhardt and Jonathan Schell. They discuss American involvement in Vietnam and Afghanistan, and US nuclear policy from the 1960s to the present.
To Listen to the Conversation
Tom Dispatch Audio and Video
A conversation between Tom Engelhardt and Jonathan Schell. They discuss American involvement in Vietnam and Afghanistan, and US nuclear policy from the 1960s to the present.
To Listen to the Conversation
Glenn Greenwald on Radio Free Dylan
Glenn Greenwald on Radio Free Dylan
Radio Free Dylan
As shocking as the WikiLeaks documents may be, even more shocking is the U.S. media’s decision to criticize the leaker, as opposed to use the information on America’s behalf.
There are so many pieces to this story, says Dylan. “One obviously to the reaction to the fact that these documents are being leaked, and ‘should they or shouldn’t they be?’ Then there’s the interesting dynamic of whether the so called fourth estate — the media — who theoretically works on behalf of the truth — is actually benefitting from this new information and then using it to amplify the quality, intensity and pointedness with which it’s able to prosecute our political leaders for everything from the wars to relations and arms deals with Saudi Arabia, or for that matter, a most favored nation trading agreement with a nation like China,” says Dylan.
Listen in for an extended conversation with Glenn and Dylan on the possible consequences of the push for the government to reclassify WikiLeaks as a “terrorist organization,” the possible fate of Bradley Manning and Julian Assange, and what the media’s reaction to the WikiLeaks release says about the weak state of the American media in 2010.
To Listen to the Interview
Radio Free Dylan
As shocking as the WikiLeaks documents may be, even more shocking is the U.S. media’s decision to criticize the leaker, as opposed to use the information on America’s behalf.
There are so many pieces to this story, says Dylan. “One obviously to the reaction to the fact that these documents are being leaked, and ‘should they or shouldn’t they be?’ Then there’s the interesting dynamic of whether the so called fourth estate — the media — who theoretically works on behalf of the truth — is actually benefitting from this new information and then using it to amplify the quality, intensity and pointedness with which it’s able to prosecute our political leaders for everything from the wars to relations and arms deals with Saudi Arabia, or for that matter, a most favored nation trading agreement with a nation like China,” says Dylan.
Listen in for an extended conversation with Glenn and Dylan on the possible consequences of the push for the government to reclassify WikiLeaks as a “terrorist organization,” the possible fate of Bradley Manning and Julian Assange, and what the media’s reaction to the WikiLeaks release says about the weak state of the American media in 2010.
To Listen to the Interview
Reporters Without Borders: Wikileaks Hounded?
Wikileaks Hounded?
Reporters Without Borders
...
This is the first time we have seen an attempt at the international community level to censor a website dedicated to the principle of transparency. We are shocked to find countries such as France and the United States suddenly bringing their policies on freedom of expression into line with those of China. We point out that in France and the United States, it is up to the courts, not politicians, to decide whether or not a website should be closed.
Meanwhile, two Republican senators, John Ensign and Scott Brown, and an independent Lieberman, have introduced a bill that would make it illegal to publish the names of U.S. military and intelligence agency informants. This could facilitate future prosecutions against WikiLeaks and its founder. But a criminal investigation is already under way and many U.S. politicians are calling vociferously for Assange’s arrest.
Reporters Without Borders can only condemn this determination to hound Assange and reiterates its conviction that WikiLeaks has a right under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment to publish these documents and is even playing a useful role by making them available to journalists and the greater public.
We stress that any restriction on the freedom to disseminate this body of documents will affect the entire press, which has given detailed coverage to the information made available by WikiLeaks, with five leading international newspapers actively cooperating in preparing it for publication.
Reporters Without Borders would also like to stress that it has always defended online freedom and the principle of “Net neutrality,” according to which Internet Service Providers and hosting companies should play no role in choosing the content that is placed online.
To Read the Entire Statment
Reporters Without Borders
...
This is the first time we have seen an attempt at the international community level to censor a website dedicated to the principle of transparency. We are shocked to find countries such as France and the United States suddenly bringing their policies on freedom of expression into line with those of China. We point out that in France and the United States, it is up to the courts, not politicians, to decide whether or not a website should be closed.
Meanwhile, two Republican senators, John Ensign and Scott Brown, and an independent Lieberman, have introduced a bill that would make it illegal to publish the names of U.S. military and intelligence agency informants. This could facilitate future prosecutions against WikiLeaks and its founder. But a criminal investigation is already under way and many U.S. politicians are calling vociferously for Assange’s arrest.
Reporters Without Borders can only condemn this determination to hound Assange and reiterates its conviction that WikiLeaks has a right under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment to publish these documents and is even playing a useful role by making them available to journalists and the greater public.
We stress that any restriction on the freedom to disseminate this body of documents will affect the entire press, which has given detailed coverage to the information made available by WikiLeaks, with five leading international newspapers actively cooperating in preparing it for publication.
Reporters Without Borders would also like to stress that it has always defended online freedom and the principle of “Net neutrality,” according to which Internet Service Providers and hosting companies should play no role in choosing the content that is placed online.
To Read the Entire Statment
Matthew Dowd: To Tell the Truth -- Maybe the government would earn more of our trust if it leveled with us more and invaded our privacy less.
To Tell the Truth: Maybe the government would earn more of our trust if it leveled with us more and invaded our privacy less.
by Matthew Dowd
National Journal
Judging by the press accounts, Washington is still buzzing over WikiLeaks’ release of classified U.S. government information, with both Republicans and Democrats expressing outrage over the disclosures. Meanwhile, many media outlets seem to be practically mute on the subject, avoiding comment on whether WikiLeaks provided a public service or disservice.
Let me offer one man’s perspective on the controversy, from an apartment in Austin, Texas.
As I was sitting with my three grown sons over the post-Thanksgiving weekend watching football at their place (where they have lived together for nearly a year without a major fight, the place burning down, or the police showing up), my oldest son, who served in the Army for five years and was deployed in Iraq for nearly a year and half, turned to me and asked, “When as a country did we become a place where the government gets upset when its secrets are revealed but has no problem knowing all our secrets and invading our privacy?”
Hmm, interesting question.
In Washington’s polarized political environment, Republicans and Democrats seem to agree on a few things: That the government, in the name of fighting terrorism, has the right to listen in on all of our phone conversations and read our e-mails, even if it has no compelling reason for doing so. That the government can use machines at the airport that basically conduct the equivalent of strip searches of every passenger. That the government, for as long as it wants, can withhold any information from the public that it decides is in the national interest and is classified. And that when someone reveals this information, they are reviled on all sides, with the press corps staying silent.
When did we decide that revealing the truth about the government is wrong?I recall during the Clinton administration when Republicans expressed outrage over a White House health care task force holding “secret” meetings and not releasing the names of attendees or the topics of discussion. And then not many years later, Democrats expressing similar outrage at the Bush administration’s secrecy when it held private meetings related to energy policy. Now both sides have gotten together to attack WikiLeaks over the opposite situation: They are criticizing the Internet watchdog for openly releasing information related to how our government conducts foreign policy.
To Read the Rest of the Commentary
by Matthew Dowd
National Journal
Judging by the press accounts, Washington is still buzzing over WikiLeaks’ release of classified U.S. government information, with both Republicans and Democrats expressing outrage over the disclosures. Meanwhile, many media outlets seem to be practically mute on the subject, avoiding comment on whether WikiLeaks provided a public service or disservice.
Let me offer one man’s perspective on the controversy, from an apartment in Austin, Texas.
As I was sitting with my three grown sons over the post-Thanksgiving weekend watching football at their place (where they have lived together for nearly a year without a major fight, the place burning down, or the police showing up), my oldest son, who served in the Army for five years and was deployed in Iraq for nearly a year and half, turned to me and asked, “When as a country did we become a place where the government gets upset when its secrets are revealed but has no problem knowing all our secrets and invading our privacy?”
Hmm, interesting question.
In Washington’s polarized political environment, Republicans and Democrats seem to agree on a few things: That the government, in the name of fighting terrorism, has the right to listen in on all of our phone conversations and read our e-mails, even if it has no compelling reason for doing so. That the government can use machines at the airport that basically conduct the equivalent of strip searches of every passenger. That the government, for as long as it wants, can withhold any information from the public that it decides is in the national interest and is classified. And that when someone reveals this information, they are reviled on all sides, with the press corps staying silent.
When did we decide that revealing the truth about the government is wrong?I recall during the Clinton administration when Republicans expressed outrage over a White House health care task force holding “secret” meetings and not releasing the names of attendees or the topics of discussion. And then not many years later, Democrats expressing similar outrage at the Bush administration’s secrecy when it held private meetings related to energy policy. Now both sides have gotten together to attack WikiLeaks over the opposite situation: They are criticizing the Internet watchdog for openly releasing information related to how our government conducts foreign policy.
To Read the Rest of the Commentary
Daniel Ellsberg's Letter to Amazon After They Removed Wikileaks From Their Servers
From Daniel Ellsberg's letter to Amazon:
I’m disgusted by Amazon’s cowardice and servility in abruptly terminating its hosting of the Wikileaks website, in the face of threats from Senator Joe Lieberman and other Congressional right-wingers. I want no further association with any company that encourages legislative and executive officials to aspire to China’s control of information and deterrence of whistle-blowing.
For the last several years, I’ve been spending over $100 a month on new and used books from Amazon. That’s over. I have contacted Customer Service to ask Amazon to terminate immediately my membership in Amazon Prime and my Amazon credit card and account, to delete my contact and credit information from their files and to send me no more notices.
I understand that many other regular customers feel as I do and are responding the same way. Good: the broader and more immediate the boycott, the better.I hope that these others encourage their contact lists to do likewise and to let Amazon know exactly why they’re shifting their business. I’ve asked friends today to suggest alternatives. I’ve removed all links to Amazon from my site, and I’ll be exploring service from Powell’s Books, IndieBound, Biblio and others.
So far Amazon has spared itself the further embarrassment of trying to explain its action openly. This would be a good time for Amazon insiders who know and perhaps can document the political pressures that were brought to bear—and the details of the hasty kowtowing by their bosses—to leak that information. They can send it to Wikileaks (now on servers outside the US), to mainstream journalists or bloggers, or perhaps to a site like antiwar.com, which has now appropriately ended its book-purchasing association with Amazon and called a boycott.
Link to the Full Letter
I’m disgusted by Amazon’s cowardice and servility in abruptly terminating its hosting of the Wikileaks website, in the face of threats from Senator Joe Lieberman and other Congressional right-wingers. I want no further association with any company that encourages legislative and executive officials to aspire to China’s control of information and deterrence of whistle-blowing.
For the last several years, I’ve been spending over $100 a month on new and used books from Amazon. That’s over. I have contacted Customer Service to ask Amazon to terminate immediately my membership in Amazon Prime and my Amazon credit card and account, to delete my contact and credit information from their files and to send me no more notices.
I understand that many other regular customers feel as I do and are responding the same way. Good: the broader and more immediate the boycott, the better.I hope that these others encourage their contact lists to do likewise and to let Amazon know exactly why they’re shifting their business. I’ve asked friends today to suggest alternatives. I’ve removed all links to Amazon from my site, and I’ll be exploring service from Powell’s Books, IndieBound, Biblio and others.
So far Amazon has spared itself the further embarrassment of trying to explain its action openly. This would be a good time for Amazon insiders who know and perhaps can document the political pressures that were brought to bear—and the details of the hasty kowtowing by their bosses—to leak that information. They can send it to Wikileaks (now on servers outside the US), to mainstream journalists or bloggers, or perhaps to a site like antiwar.com, which has now appropriately ended its book-purchasing association with Amazon and called a boycott.
Link to the Full Letter
Democracy Now: Is WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange a Hero? Glenn Greenwald Debates Steven Aftergood of Secrecy News
Is WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange a Hero? Glenn Greenwald Debates Steven Aftergood of Secrecy News
Democracy Now
WikiLeaks is coming under attack from all sides. The U.S. government and embassies around the world are criticizing the whistleblowing group for releasing a massive trove of secret State Department cables. The WikiLeaks website is struggling to stay online just days after Amazon pulled the site from its servers following political pressure. The U.S. State Department has blocked all its employees from accessing the site and is warning all government employees not to read the cables, even at home. "These attacks will not stop our mission, but should be setting off alarm bells about the rule of law in the United States," said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. We host a debate between Steven Aftergood, a transparency advocate who has become a leading critic of WikiLeaks, and Glenn Greenwald, a constitutional law attorney and legal blogger for Salon.com.
To Watch/Listen/Read
More Resources:
Glenn Greenwald: WikiLeaks debate with Steven Aftergood (loads of links to more resources on this subject)
Democracy Now
WikiLeaks is coming under attack from all sides. The U.S. government and embassies around the world are criticizing the whistleblowing group for releasing a massive trove of secret State Department cables. The WikiLeaks website is struggling to stay online just days after Amazon pulled the site from its servers following political pressure. The U.S. State Department has blocked all its employees from accessing the site and is warning all government employees not to read the cables, even at home. "These attacks will not stop our mission, but should be setting off alarm bells about the rule of law in the United States," said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. We host a debate between Steven Aftergood, a transparency advocate who has become a leading critic of WikiLeaks, and Glenn Greenwald, a constitutional law attorney and legal blogger for Salon.com.
To Watch/Listen/Read
More Resources:
Glenn Greenwald: WikiLeaks debate with Steven Aftergood (loads of links to more resources on this subject)
Friday, December 03, 2010
Jay Rosen on Wikileaks: "The watchdog press died; we have this instead."
Also check out Jay Rosen on Press Think
In the American case, one of the reasons is that the legitimacy of the press itself is in doubt in the minds of the leakers. And there's good reason for that. Because while we have what purports to be a "watchdog press," we also have -- laid out in front of us -- the clear record of the watchdog press' failure to do what it says it can do, which is provide a check on power when it tries to conceal its deeds and its purpose.
So I think it's a mistake to try to reckon with WikiLeaks and what it's about without including in the frame the spectacular failures of the watchdog press over the last 10, 20, 30, 40 years - but especially recently. And so without this legitimacy crisis in mainstream American journalism, the leakers might not be so inclined to trust an upstart like Julian Assange and a shadowly organization like WikiLeaks . . .
These kinds of huge, cataclysmic events [the Iraq War] within the legitimacy regime lie in the background of the WikiLeaks case, because if it wasn't for those things, WikiLeaks wouldn't have the supporters it has, the leakers wouldn't collaborate the way they do, and the moral force behind exposing what this Government is doing just wouldn't be there. . . . The watchdog press died, and what we have is WikiLeaks instead.
Jay Rosen on Wikileaks: "The watchdog press died; we have this instead." from Jay Rosen on Vimeo.
Glenn Greenwald: Joe Liberman Emulates Chinese Dictators
Joe Lieberman emulates Chinese dictators
by Glenn Greenwald
Salon
...
That Joe Lieberman is abusing his position as Homeland Security Chairman to thuggishly dictate to private companies which websites they should and should not host -- and, more important, what you can and cannot read on the Internet -- is one of the most pernicious acts by a U.S. Senator in quite some time. Josh Marshall wrote yesterday: "When I'd heard that Amazon had agreed to host Wikileaks I was frankly surprised given all the fish a big corporation like Amazon has to fry with the federal government." That's true of all large corporations that own media outlets -- every one -- and that is one big reason why they're so servile to U.S. Government interests and easily manipulated by those in political power. That's precisely the dynamic Lieberman was exploiting with his menacing little phone call to Amazon (in essence: Hi, this is the Senate's Homeland Security Committee calling; you're going to be taking down that WikiLeaks site right away, right?). Amazon, of course, did what they were told.
Note that Lieberman here is desperate to prevent American citizens -- not The Terrorists -- from reading the WikiLeaks documents which shed light on what the U.S. Government is doing. His concern is domestic consumption. By his own account, he did this to "send a message to other companies that might host WikiLeaks" not to do so. No matter what you think of WikiLeaks, they have never been charged with, let alone convicted of, any crime; Lieberman literally wants to dictate -- unilaterally -- what you can and cannot read on the Internet, to prevent Americans from accessing documents that much of the rest of the world is freely reading.
The Internet, of course, is rendering decrepit would-be petty tyrants like Lieberman impotent and obsolete: WikiLeaks moved its website to a Swedish server and was accessible again within hours. But any attempt by political officials to start blocking Americans' access to political content on the Internet ought to provoke serious uproar and unrest. If the Tea Party movement and the Right generally were even minimally genuine in their ostensible beliefs, few things would trigger more intense objections than a political official trying to dictate to private actors which political content they should allow on the Internet (instead, you have Newt Gingrich demanding that Assange be declared an "enemy combatant" and Sarah Palin calling for his murder). Remember, though -- as The Post told us today -- it's "authoritarian governments and tightly controlled media in China and across the Arab Middle East" which are trying to prevent citizens from learning about the WikiLeaks documents.
...
If there's Nothing New in these documents, can Jonathan Capehart (or any other "journalist" claiming this) please point to where The Washington Post previously reported on these facts, all revealed by the WikiLeaks disclosures:
(1) the U.S. military formally adopted a policy of turning a blind eye to systematic, pervasive torture and other abuses by Iraqi forces;
(2) the State Department threatened Germany not to criminally investigate the CIA's kidnapping of one of its citizens who turned out to be completely innocent;
(3) the State Department under Bush and Obama applied continuous pressure on the Spanish Government to suppress investigations of the CIA's torture of its citizens and the 2003 killing of a Spanish photojournalist when the U.S. military fired on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad (see The Philadelphia Inquirer's Will Bunch today about this: "The day Barack Obama Lied to me");
(4) the British Government privately promised to shield Bush officials from embarrassment as part of its Iraq War "investigation";
(5) there were at least 15,000 people killed in Iraq that were previously uncounted;
(6) "American leaders lied, knowingly, to the American public, to American troops, and to the world" about the Iraq war as it was prosecuted, a conclusion the Post's own former Baghdad Bureau Chief wrote was proven by the WikiLeaks documents;
(7) the U.S.'s own Ambassador concluded that the July, 2009 removal of the Honduran President was illegal -- a coup -- but the State Department did not want to conclude that and thus ignored it until it was too late to matter;
(8) U.S. and British officials colluded to allow the U.S. to keep cluster bombs on British soil even though Britain had signed the treaty banning such weapons, and,
(9) Hillary Clinton's State Department ordered diplomats to collect passwords, emails, and biometric data on U.N. and other foreign officials, almost certainly in violation of the Vienna Treaty of 1961.
That's just a sampling.
This is what Joe Lieberman and his comrades are desperately trying to suppress -- literally prevent it from being accessible on the Internet. And "journalists" like Capehart play along by continuing to insist there's "nothing new" being revealed by WikiLeaks despite their never having reported any of this. And since the disclosures, does anyone believe that any of these revelations have received anything close to meaningful attention by the American establishment media? But remember -- as Capehart's newspaper taught us today -- "revelations by the organization WikiLeaks have received blanket coverage this week on television, in newspapers" in Free America -- showing what a Vibrant, Adversarial Press we are blessed with -- but "in many Arab countries, the mainstream media have largely avoided reporting on the sensitive contents of the cables."
To Read the Rest of the Commentary and To Access Hyperlinked Resources
by Glenn Greenwald
Salon
...
That Joe Lieberman is abusing his position as Homeland Security Chairman to thuggishly dictate to private companies which websites they should and should not host -- and, more important, what you can and cannot read on the Internet -- is one of the most pernicious acts by a U.S. Senator in quite some time. Josh Marshall wrote yesterday: "When I'd heard that Amazon had agreed to host Wikileaks I was frankly surprised given all the fish a big corporation like Amazon has to fry with the federal government." That's true of all large corporations that own media outlets -- every one -- and that is one big reason why they're so servile to U.S. Government interests and easily manipulated by those in political power. That's precisely the dynamic Lieberman was exploiting with his menacing little phone call to Amazon (in essence: Hi, this is the Senate's Homeland Security Committee calling; you're going to be taking down that WikiLeaks site right away, right?). Amazon, of course, did what they were told.
Note that Lieberman here is desperate to prevent American citizens -- not The Terrorists -- from reading the WikiLeaks documents which shed light on what the U.S. Government is doing. His concern is domestic consumption. By his own account, he did this to "send a message to other companies that might host WikiLeaks" not to do so. No matter what you think of WikiLeaks, they have never been charged with, let alone convicted of, any crime; Lieberman literally wants to dictate -- unilaterally -- what you can and cannot read on the Internet, to prevent Americans from accessing documents that much of the rest of the world is freely reading.
The Internet, of course, is rendering decrepit would-be petty tyrants like Lieberman impotent and obsolete: WikiLeaks moved its website to a Swedish server and was accessible again within hours. But any attempt by political officials to start blocking Americans' access to political content on the Internet ought to provoke serious uproar and unrest. If the Tea Party movement and the Right generally were even minimally genuine in their ostensible beliefs, few things would trigger more intense objections than a political official trying to dictate to private actors which political content they should allow on the Internet (instead, you have Newt Gingrich demanding that Assange be declared an "enemy combatant" and Sarah Palin calling for his murder). Remember, though -- as The Post told us today -- it's "authoritarian governments and tightly controlled media in China and across the Arab Middle East" which are trying to prevent citizens from learning about the WikiLeaks documents.
...
If there's Nothing New in these documents, can Jonathan Capehart (or any other "journalist" claiming this) please point to where The Washington Post previously reported on these facts, all revealed by the WikiLeaks disclosures:
(1) the U.S. military formally adopted a policy of turning a blind eye to systematic, pervasive torture and other abuses by Iraqi forces;
(2) the State Department threatened Germany not to criminally investigate the CIA's kidnapping of one of its citizens who turned out to be completely innocent;
(3) the State Department under Bush and Obama applied continuous pressure on the Spanish Government to suppress investigations of the CIA's torture of its citizens and the 2003 killing of a Spanish photojournalist when the U.S. military fired on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad (see The Philadelphia Inquirer's Will Bunch today about this: "The day Barack Obama Lied to me");
(4) the British Government privately promised to shield Bush officials from embarrassment as part of its Iraq War "investigation";
(5) there were at least 15,000 people killed in Iraq that were previously uncounted;
(6) "American leaders lied, knowingly, to the American public, to American troops, and to the world" about the Iraq war as it was prosecuted, a conclusion the Post's own former Baghdad Bureau Chief wrote was proven by the WikiLeaks documents;
(7) the U.S.'s own Ambassador concluded that the July, 2009 removal of the Honduran President was illegal -- a coup -- but the State Department did not want to conclude that and thus ignored it until it was too late to matter;
(8) U.S. and British officials colluded to allow the U.S. to keep cluster bombs on British soil even though Britain had signed the treaty banning such weapons, and,
(9) Hillary Clinton's State Department ordered diplomats to collect passwords, emails, and biometric data on U.N. and other foreign officials, almost certainly in violation of the Vienna Treaty of 1961.
That's just a sampling.
This is what Joe Lieberman and his comrades are desperately trying to suppress -- literally prevent it from being accessible on the Internet. And "journalists" like Capehart play along by continuing to insist there's "nothing new" being revealed by WikiLeaks despite their never having reported any of this. And since the disclosures, does anyone believe that any of these revelations have received anything close to meaningful attention by the American establishment media? But remember -- as Capehart's newspaper taught us today -- "revelations by the organization WikiLeaks have received blanket coverage this week on television, in newspapers" in Free America -- showing what a Vibrant, Adversarial Press we are blessed with -- but "in many Arab countries, the mainstream media have largely avoided reporting on the sensitive contents of the cables."
To Read the Rest of the Commentary and To Access Hyperlinked Resources
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